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N.Y.C. Broker Fees Are Here to Stay. Why Do They Exist in the First Place? [1]

['Matthew Haag']

Date: 2021-05-27

Here’s what it means for renters.

Weren’t broker fees recently banned in New York?

Yes — but only for a very brief period in early 2020.

Just before the pandemic hit the city, the New York Department of State, which interprets laws and issues guidance based on those interpretations, said that under sweeping rent protection laws passed by the State Legislature in 2019, the collection of broker fees was banned. The suite of laws was meant to strengthen the rights of tenants.

The announcement stunned brokers, renters and even some lawmakers, who had not considered a limitation on broker fees when they passed the laws in 2019, which did impose limits on other types of rental fees.

Technically, broker fees were prohibited for a few weeks in February 2020, from the moment the state said they could not be collected to when a state judge halted the ruling after the state’s largest real estate lobbying group, the Real Estate Board of New York City, filed a lawsuit. The group eventually won the lawsuit, and based on that, the state updated its guidance on Tuesday.

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[1] Url: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/nyregion/broker-fees-real-estate.html

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